“Are you Mr. Gambol, sir?” Roxy asked.
“Yes, that’s right. Randolph Gambol. How—”
“Didn’t either of you gentlemen know there were gale warnings up when you left Miami?”
“Yes, but we’d talked to Jason... to Mr. Trench... and he said the weather was clear down this way. We thought—”
“What time did you leave Miami?” Roxy asked.
“At dawn,” Witten answered.
“We thought we’d be in Ocho Puertos by now,” Gambol said.
“But she conked out, and we haven’t been able to get her started again.”
“We’ve got plenty of gas.”
“It read full when we left this morning.”
“It still reads half. Take a look at it yourself.”
“Yeah,” Roxy said, and grunted.
In the sleeping compartment below, Emil Bunder looked at the huge belly of the woman in the upper starboard berth and immediately swallowed and then wet his lips. The woman was breathing through her mouth. Her eyes were closed. Her face was sweaty, and each breath she took seemed to send a ragged shudder through her enormous body.
“Ma’am?” he said.
The woman grunted and then suddenly gripped her stomach and opened her eyes wide, and squinched them shut again almost immediately, her fingers twisted into the covering sheet. “Oh my God!” she said, and Bunder wet his lips again, and again said, “Ma’am, can you... is it... are you in labor?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “Oh my God, please help me.”
Bunder tried to remember if the Coast Guard had ever taught him anything about the delivery of babies, and the only thing that came to mind was the need for timing the frequency of the labor pains. He turned to the engineman who had come below after him, and nervously said, “Time her pains, Jack.” Then he opened the canvas carrying bag of the PRC/59, lifted the telephone-like receiver and radioed the ship.
“You’d better get me the captain personally,” he told the radioman who answered aboard the Mercury.
“Stand by,” the radioman said, and Bunder waited with the receiver to his ear, and the woman lying at his elbow, groaning and writhing. She suddenly gave a convulsive shudder, her hands gripping the edges of the bunk.
“There’s another one,” he said to the engineman. “How many minutes was that?”
“Four.” The engineman looked up into Bunder’s face. “Is that good or bad?”
“Well, it gives us a little time, anyway,” Bunder said.
“I’ve already broken water,” the woman advised him.
“Yes, ma’am,” Bunder answered, embarrassed.
“I’m soaking wet,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What does that mean?” the engineman whispered into his ear.
“What does what mean?”
“Breaking water.”
“I don’t know,” Bunder whispered back.
“Quicksilver One, this is Quicksilver. Over.”
“Go ahead, Quicksilver,” Bunder said into the phone.
“Doc, hold on, here’s the captain.”
“Mm,” Bunder said.
The captain’s voice came onto the line immediately. “Doc? This is the captain.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s the situation there?”
“Sir, I’ve got a pregnant woman here who’s already in labor. Her pains are about four minutes apart.”
“There’s another one,” the engineman said.
“There’s another one, sir,” Bunder said into the phone.
“Tell him about the water,” the engineman whispered.
“Sir, she’s been breaking some water,” Bunder said, embarrassed.
“What do you advise, Doc?”
“Sir, I’ve never delivered a baby before, and I’d rather not try it here. I’m below with the woman now, and this sleeping compartment is about maybe six by eight, sir, with two bunks on each side and a passageway of about a foot between them, sir. She’s in the upper starboard bunk, and there’s maybe two, two and a half feet between her bell — between her and the overhead, sir. So I don’t think this is the place to go delivering a baby, sir, especially since I’ve never done this kind of thing before.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I’d like permission to take her back to the ship, sir. And I’d suggest, sir, that you get the wardroom set up for an emergency delivery, and ask around aboard the ship, sir, for any of the men who’ve had experience with this sort of thing and who can lend me a hand.”
“Very well, bring her back.”
“Yes, sir. And, sir, we’re going to need someplace to get her ready for the delivery. I was thinking someplace in officer’s country, sir, maybe Mr. Pierce’s cabin or—”
“She can have my cabin, Bunder,” Cates said. “Get back here as fast as you can.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bunder?”
“Sir?”
“Is she an American?”
“Yes, sir,” Bunder said.
“Very well. On the double.”
“Yes, sir,” Bunder said, and put the receiver down. “We’re taking her back to the ship,” he said to the engineman.
“What did he say about that water she busted?”
“Nothing,” Bunder said, and shrugged and went topside. “Who’s this lady’s husband?” he asked.
“Why? What is it?”
“Are you her husband?”
“No, my name’s Gambol. I’m a close friend. What is it?”
“Well, we want to take her aboard ship. She’s in labor, and—”
“All right, let’s do it,” Gambol said.
“Well, that’s just it, sir. I wanted to get permission from her husband.”
“Her husband isn’t aboard, Doc,” Roxy said. “He’s in Ocho Puertos.”
“Oh. Then I guess I’ll have to get permission from her.”
“Look, would you mind—” Gambol began.
“We’ll probably need a release, too. Don’t you think so, Roxy?”
“Yeah, most likely.”
“What kind of release?”
“She’s coming aboard government property, Mr. Witten,” Roxy said.
“What’s that got to do with—”
“We wouldn’t want to be held responsible if anything—”
“I never delivered a baby before,” Bunder said.
“Can’t you take care of a release after she’s aboard?” Witten said impatiently.
“Yeah, we’ll have to check it with the captain,” Roxy said. “You want to use the stretcher, Doc?”
“I don’t know. Let me ask her if she can walk.” As he went down the ladder, he paused, and then said, “She may not be able to with all that broken water, you know.”
The engineman looked up as Bunder came down the steps into the sleeping compartment.
“How’s it going?” Bunder asked.
“Every three minutes,” the engineman said.
Bunder squeezed past him, nodded and bent so that his mouth was close to the woman’s ear. “Ma’am?” he whispered.
“Mmm?”
“Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
“We’re going to take you aboard ship, ma’am. We’ll be able to help you better there.”
“All right.”
“We’ve got a stretcher and we can use that if you like. But it’s kind of tight down here, and if you can walk, I think we’ll save a lot of time. What do you think, ma’am?”
“I think I can walk.”
“Okay. Ma’am, I think we’d better hurry, if you know what I mean, because three minutes apart is getting kind of close. We don’t want to deliver the baby here under these conditions.”
“No,” the woman said. She wiped her hand across her mouth and opened her eyes, and sat up as far as the low overhead would permit, leaning on one elbow. “Would you help me down, please?” she said.